


no plates

by kermitfotia



Series: hearth and home [1]
Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, i am a simple lesbian i like 70s cars and lio fotia, just one oc. just a little bit, vaguely a comedy?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:35:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24155188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kermitfotia/pseuds/kermitfotia
Summary: Lio Fotia had gotten himself into a bit of a sticky situation, namely that he was trying very hard to steal a car, despite being twelve years old and not having much skill in the departments of stealing cars or driving them.(Or, how Lio Fotia may have joined Mad Burnish entirely on accident.)
Series: hearth and home [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1748110
Comments: 18
Kudos: 67





	no plates

**Author's Note:**

> yknow im not much of a car person but there is ONE car i think is super epic and its the second and third gen dodge chargers. ideally in flat black. anyways please know the one here is specifically a 1970 dodge charger (some of which, super fun fact, were assembled in detroit michigan) and i am almost comically invested in my half a dozen cool promare backstory ideas
> 
> anyways shoutout to fern's suggested title of "run my plates i fucking dare you"

At twelve years old, Lio was no expert at hotwiring. Now, to be fair, Lio had hotwired exactly two vehicles before, and that second time hadn’t quite gone as smoothly as he’d hoped. So maybe the third time would be the charm?

While he held little to no experience or skill in hotwiring, Lio _did_ know how to break into a car. Mostly because he could practically break into anything, thanks to the fact that he was Burnish and therefore always had his handy dandy magic fire that could occupy whatever shape he so wished. He was getting pretty good at fake keys and lockpicks. Not usually good enough to start a car, but good enough to pick the lock on the doors.

All of this put together meant that Lio Fotia had gotten himself into a bit of a sticky situation.

See, he’d spent the last few days camped out not too far from a gas station in approximately fuckall nowhere after being chased halfway across the state by cops for stealing canned corn in a minimart. Admittedly, it’d been a sizeable amount of canned corn. If the sirens he could occasionally hear between the afternoon and the middle of the night were any indication, they still weren’t too far off. Cops were getting all too common in the middle of nowhere for his liking. Before all this, he’d been way up north along the coast, trying to get in on the capelin roll he’d heard about when he’d been offered a ride halfway. That’d been a bust. Not for lack of fish, but for abundance of law enforcement asking questions about a kid with a few buckets of fish and no parents in sight. That was also where hotwiring incident number two had went down.

Down here made for good camping, in woods full of abandoned cabins no one cared to check in on, some even within decent walking distance of a gas station. It was the best a Burnish could ask for. He wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do next, only that he needed a vehicle to be going much of anywhere. So, after scrounging up enough pocket change to buy a slushie instead of getting kicked out for blatantly stealing one, Lio had sat down on the curb and waited. And waited. And waited.

And just past dusk the most beautiful damn car he’d seen in his life rolled into the parking lot. It had to be pre-Blaze, well pre-Blaze, from the sturdy look of the machine. They didn’t build them like that any more and hadn’t for decades now, not that goddamn wide. Lio was no idiot; it was a good car, not just for show or sitting around in a garage, all shiny and clean like an oversized dust-collector. Hell, it was even a little beat up, dust and mud all too obvious on the flat black paint.

Even parked in a corner half under shitty fluorescent gas station lights that could’ve made anything look bad, that was the coolest car he’d seen in forever. And it had no plates.

So, well, he had to have it. Lio had always had a little bit of sticky fingers, and he couldn’t turn up his nose at a ride like that. He needed to get out of here anyways, cause he really didn’t plan on spending the rest of his life holed up in someone’s musty old cabin with all the mice and racoons.

Lio was so busy staring at the car, wheels spinning in his head as he chewed on his slushie straw, that he didn’t even notice whoever got out of it. The second he heard the door jingle closed behind him, he was throwing the empty slushie in a bin and practically barrelling towards that car, helpful flame in hand.

In fact, he was so preoccupied with breaking into and hotwiring such a fucking cool car, as any twelve year old would be, that he didn’t notice when a cop car pulled into the lot until it was already there.

And this, all of this, led to Lio Fotia’s sticky situation. He was a twelve year old kid with bright green hair in a worn down denim jacket with a too-big vest and cracked boots, desperately trying to start a car when he didn’t entirely know how to hotwire in the first place, the cops were parked and it looked like one of them was getting out, and now he could vaguely see someone chatting up the gas station cashier. Oh god. Oh, he’d really done it this time. He was going to be strung up by the neck. He might’ve been years out from attending church, but he almost started crossing himself on reflex. Any help was help.

Despite how much he was panicking internally, Lio also had an unbeatable poker face and an ongoing case of resting bitch face. Which was mostly to say that he was very good at sitting in the front seat and looking like he was calm and busy doing something other than stealing a car when he heard footsteps on the pavement.

It had to be one of the cops, cause it was another few seconds before he heard the door of the gas station jingle open and closed again. He didn’t look up. It would give it away if he looked up. The stupid car wouldn’t start no matter which stupid wires he tried putting together, and it sure didn’t help that his hands were starting to shake. The footsteps were still getting closer, and he didn’t look up.

Even with all the stupid, desperate teenager bravado in the world, Lio still jolted when he heard a heavy knock on the window. He could only hope he didn’t look as red-handed as he absolutely was when he stuffed his hands under the wheel and looked up and out the window.

He hadn’t noticed until now, but the car didn’t have electric windows. They were roll-ups. If his stomach wasn’t currently in his boots, this might’ve been one of the funniest things that had happened to him. The police cop outside didn’t seem too happy about it either, impatiently waiting as Lio knocked at the crank, requiring an almost hilarious amount of elbow grease to get it going.

Just as the window was rolled down a decent amount and the cop opened his mouth, another voice rang out across the parking lot.

“ _Oi_! Marty! What in the hell are you doin’ in my seat? Get back in the passenger’s side!” Lio’s head snapped over, looking out the dusty windshield to see someone stomping through the parking lot. He didn’t hesitate to basically barrel over into the other seat, his heart pounding in his ears as he righted himself, even throwing on the seatbelt for good measure.

Outside, the other person walked up the side of the car, smoothly shouldering between the police and the door. “And what are you doing here?”

The cop sputtered for a moment, pointing at Lio and quickly backing off as the driver’s door opened and the stranger threw a heavy plastic bag into Lio’s hands. They clicked it closed again, standing up straight and crossing their arms. There was some kind of fancy design on the back of their jacket, but Lio couldn’t quite make it out between the dark and the dusty windows.

“I’m his ma? I sure hope you didn’t think my own kid was trying to steal my car?” She motioned to Lio, briefly looking at him over her shoulder. “Marty is a bit of a troublemaker, but if you’ve got a problem, bring it to me and not to my kid. Got it?”

...What? Lio wasn’t sure if he was in more or less trouble, but he shoved his hands in his pockets and let them heat up nonetheless.

The stranger cracked open the door again, sliding easily into the driver's seat and shoved a darkly metallic key into the ignition. That rang somehow familiar in Lio’s mind, but he felt too much like a scrambled egg to pinpoint it. The cop cast a weird look around the other person, and Lio made the somewhat stupid decision to raise a hand and awkwardly wave with the most sheepish look possible as she cranked up the window.

Then the car was roaring to life and rumbling out of the parking lot before anyone could get in another word. The thundering of the engine shook through the whole car, nothing like the more streamlined modern vehicles Lio had mostly been in. They took a sharp turn out onto the road, and Lio just barely kept himself from flying into the window like a ragdoll with a tight grip on the seat beneath, the bag in his lap rattling around with him.

Once they were out of immediate sight of the gas station and speeding down winding forest road, the woman sighed and flipped up her sunglasses.

“You can put the bag on the floor, it won’t knock over as easy between your feet.” She looked over at him, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes, just silently nodding as he moved the bag down. “Don’t look so solemn, this ain’t church and I’m not gonna turn you in or go chop you up into bits out in the middle of the woods. You don’t look like the kinda kid to go down without a fight anyways.”

Lio wrung his hands, looking out the window. “You ain’t wrong about that,” he mumbled. He let a quiet good few moments go by, staring at the scraggly trees whizzing by in the dark and eyeing the reflection of his driver in the window.

“So why’d you help me like that?”

She laughed at that, loud and brash. “I knew you were gonna try to jack my car the second I saw you in that parking lot, let’s call that a hunch.” At that, Lio actually turned away from the window, confused. “And you’ve got guts, kid! But I’ll let you in on a secret,” and she reached under the wheel, motioning at the wires left exposed, “hotwiring this damn thing doesn’t work, cause she doesn’t exactly have a normal engine. Technically, sure, there’s one in there, but…”

Then she paused and pointed at the dials behind the wheel, something Lio had never paid a single second of attention to. Maybe he wasn’t always the most practical of the bunch. “See, if you look, I don’t usually put any real gas in it.” That was enough to make Lio squint between the wires and the dials, trying to make sense of it when it was all dark, the fuel was on empty, and the car was still running underneath him.

“What? But then how’s it run?”

She didn’t say anything at first, and that made Lio look up and actually look her in the face for the first time. Silently, she winked and brought a finger to her lips, and he gasped out loud when it lit up with a dancing purple flame. The flare burst like a firework, sparks spinning and condensing into a little ball between them, lighting up the car with a warm glow.

He stared at it, eyes wide as a deer caught in headlights.

Slowly, gingerly, he reached out to cup his hands underneath it, his own fluorescent sparks prickling along his fingers as if drawn up and out of his skin. 

“Surprised? Honestly, I can’t believe you couldn’t already tell. Most Burnish are pretty good at pickin’ each other out, and to be quite frank, you’re the brightest spark I’ve seen in a long while.” She glanced over and smiled, watching Lio gather the little flame towards himself with something between enthusiasm and caution.

“I…don’t have a lot of practice,”

“Recently Burnish?”

“No,” Lio shrugged, already easily rolling foreign flame between his hands like a baseball when she looked again. “With other Burnish, I mean.”

She was quiet for a moment, watching the way his face lit up when he made the flames spin in his palm. As far as she could tell, the kid probably had more energy than a nuclear reactor; he had to be strong to handle a flame that wasn’t his own like that, but he didn’t know any other Burnish? “Well, Marty, if you still wanna know how the car runs, I can explain that too. But simply put, she drives on fire instead of gas, which makes her a pretty clean mean machine and saves me a lot of cash.”

Lio gave a funny look, “Why do you keep calling me Marty anyways?”

She raised an eyebrow back, and gestured at him with one hand. “I had to call you something when I saw you, and you looked just like Marty. Especially sitting in this thing.”

“Marty who?”

“You never watched much from the old world, did you?” She snorted when he shook his head. “Of course not, not a kid like you. This hunk of junk is from the pre-Blaze days too, decades back, made in Michigan and probably worth a fortune to some. But, anyways, how’s abouts we introduce ourselves properly, if that’s alright with you?”

Out of the corner of her eye she saw him tense for a moment, shoulders going up and his own flames briefly flaring a telltale white-hot. Lio wasn’t stupid, he had some survival instincts and enough control of his own fire to calm it back to a mellow pink, and she was glad to see he hadn’t just gotten this far on dumb luck. She tried to convey as much calm as one could through their own tiny ball of fire, but she may as well have been knocking on a brick wall.

“Sure,” he said, just quiet and stiff enough to be noticeable, staring straight out the windshield.

“Alright. I’ll start.” She eased up just enough on the gas pedal to properly turn towards Lio and away from the road, putting one hand out. “The name’s Winnifred, but most people just call me Winnie. Or Fred, either works.”

Hesitantly, Lio let her flame hang in the air again, like he didn’t quite know how to do it, and reached out his own hand. His grip was reluctant, but quickly turned firm when she actually shook their hands, holding on more tightly than she was. Lio had never been as frail as he looked, thanks to the flames.

“Mine’s Lio. Lio Fotia.”

She nodded once, and let his hand go with a smile. “Then it’s nice to meet you Lio.”

“S’nice to meet you too. Thanks a lot for that, uh, Miss Winnie?” He fidgeted in his seat, just a little more relaxed, even more-so when he picked up her flame again and started summoning his own in his other hand.

“Winnie is fine! It’s been forever since anyone called me missus,” and then the car revved up again, booming and roaring down the empty road. She let the quiet sit for a minute or too, watching the road and the flicker of flames in the windshield, letting Lio settle down while he was absorbed in playing with fire. “I’ve got a feeling I already know the answer, but hey Lio? Can I ask a question?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have anywhere to go?”

He didn’t look up from his hands, his own pinkish flare dancing in a rough approximation of a sphere, his face and his fire both decidedly and forcibly neutral. Casually, or as casually as anyone could force themselves to be, he shrugged. “Not really.” His voice was oddly small, as if he was trying to fold himself up into a corner. “Haven’t for a while, really…” and he trailed off.

“In that case,” _and curse my soft spot,_ “would’ya like to come up my way? I live with a dandy few Burnish, so I’m sure we’d have the room. I was just down this way pickin’ up some supplies.”

Again, he shrugged, smaller this time, not as on guard. “If that’s alright. If it’s no hassle.”

“Of course not, kid. And if anyone gives you a hard time, we can just tell ‘em you’re my kid and they’ll back right off.”

This time, Lio snorted, looking up and over at Winnie with something vaguely like a grin. “Yeah right, like anyone’d believe it.”

“Oh yeah?” She paused, trying not to raise an eyebrow at how his own fire was almost smoothed into a proper ball, something that had taken her hours if not days of concentration to properly master. “Well, can I ask you one more question?”

“Shoot,”

“Did you pick your own last name?”

He didn’t seem to get it, and nodded a little. “Yeah?” It was no surprise to hear; tons of Burnish changed their names for one reason or another, it would’ve been more uncommon to find someone who hadn’t.

She smiled wider, trying not to look yet lest she start laughing. “And was it after that dread leader of Mad Burnish? The one with a good few dozen rumoured names?”

“I mean, kinda, sorta. Why?”

“Cause I picked my own too. It’s Winnifred Fotia. But back home, half of everyone just calls me Boss.”

Lio fell silent, staring at her in that intense way Burnish sometimes did, with furrowed brows and lights in their eyes that went straight through you, poking and prodding to see if you were telling the truth. It was hard, if not impossible, to lie to anyone who had the flames. She didn’t falter in looking right back at him, didn’t hesitate to meet eyes that may as well have been stars.

He blinked, slowly. Almost like a cat. “No way. You’ve got to be kidding. There’s _no_ way.”

She just smiled, sharp and bright and honest, the car’s engine jumping and revving again beneath them.

“Like I said, tell ‘em you’re my kid, and no one will give you any trouble again. Not on my watch.”

**Author's Note:**

> and then they go and live in a burnish community in the mountains and lio gets taught how to drive properly and then probably never drives an actual car again because he builds his own bike and his mom will never let him drive her cool car after watching him crash a toyota corolla into a tree at age 14


End file.
